TWO sisters who left a broken home in Brazil said Oxfordshire has inspired them to start an online fashion business.

Gosford Hill School pupils Thamyris, 17, and Thais De Souza, 14, left their homeland in 2006 and have now launched the website Saints and Sinners.

www.saintsandsinnersofficial.com sells clothes, shoes and accessories.

Thamyris said: “I lived in Santa Catarina in Brazil until I was nine and my parents got divorced.

“The troubles our family faced all started when my dad was involved in a really nasty car accident and suffered severe injuries.

“I never knew what happened in the accident because he wouldn’t talk about it but all I saw was my father changing and becoming a different person.”

Following the accident the girls’ mother Cleonie Dos Santos left Brazil for the UK where she worked as a cleaner to send money back to the family to pay for her husband’s urgent operations.

Thamyris added: “My mother went to England for a couple of years and worked hard to support us and pay for the operation, but while she was gone things got very bad. I was constantly living on egg shells in my house, afraid that my father might snap at any moment and get angry with me.”

Ms Santos said that when she discovered the severity of the situation she flew back to Brazil to divorce her husband and brought her children back to the UK.

She said: “As soon as the courts said I had full custody I knew I needed to bring them back to England where we could start again.”

Thamyris said: “What happened to my sister and I was horrible but I’m in such a positive place in my life.

“I’m here in Oxfordshire and I’m so happy because it’s given me the opportunity to go to a really good school and learn a lot and also start up this business with my sister.

“To think that something so amazing has grown out of something so upsetting makes me feel so proud.”

Ms Dos Santos said: “I am so proud of what the girls have achieved because it has been their dream for a long time.”